Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/238

222 non-compliance, the compulsory authority should be exercised on individuals. This idea includes an acknowledgment that the old Confederation is totally incompetent to federal purposes.

But let us view, said he, the operation of a system founded on such a principle. In the first place, the necessary revenue officers must be appointed. Congress will then send out the requisitions, and, on refusal or neglect, will resort to individual coercion. If the states punctually comply with the requisitions, an expensive establishment must be supported, without object or employment. If, on the contrary, they are delinquent, what an alarming image of disorder is presented to our view! A body of federal officers, in the heart of a state, acting in direct opposition to the declared sense of the legislature! Would not this be a source of eternal disorder? Would not a government, thus calculated to promote a spirit of civil dissension, be forever impracticable? Such a government must be attended with every delay, with every expense—must defeat itself, and be its own destruction.

The Hon. Mr. SMITH said, he conceived that the Constitution ought to be considered by paragraphs. An honorable gentleman yesterday had opened the debate with some general observations; another honorable gentleman had just answered him by general observations. He wished the Constitution to be examined by paragraphs. In going through it, he should offer his objections to such parts of it as he thought defective.

The first section of the first article was then read, and passed by without remark.

The second section being read,

Mr. SMITH again rose. He most heartily concurred in sentiment with the honorable gentleman who opened the debate, yesterday, that the discussion of the important question now before them ought to be entered on with a spirit of patriotism; with minds open to conviction; with a determination to form opinions only on the merits of the question, from those evidences which should appear in the course of the investigation.

How far the general observations made by the honorable gentleman accorded with these principles, he left to the house to determine.